Ken Burns' Documentary: The National Parks -- America's Best Idea
The reputation Ken Burns has acquired over the years is a glowing, highly lauded reputation, and for good reason. His use of history, video and well-written narrative has won awards and has entertained and informed all those who have come into contact with his documentaries. The documentary to be critiqued and reviewed in this paper is The National Parks -- America's Best Idea.
How Yosemite Got its Name
The first segment of The National Parks focuses on the very popular national park, Yosemite, in California. Burns starts off by pointing to a group of "armed white men" called the Mariposa Battalion. It was in the middle of the California gold rush in 1851 and they were riding through California searching for Native Americans they could drive from their homeland. On March 27 of that year these men found what would later be called Yosemite. Tall granite peaks and waterfalls that were spectacular made a big impression on them. The water from the falls fell "thousands of feet" to the valley floor.
One of the men in the Mariposa Battalion believed that the sheer beauty of the place was unlike anything he had ever seen; he named the beautiful place "Yosemite" because he erroneously believed "Yosemite" was the name of the Indian tribe that the battalion had tried to destroy. The men burned every house that belonged to the Indians. Ironically the name "Yosemite" meant "someone to be feared" and "killers," according to Burns' documentary.
Burns' documentary shows an interview with Alfred Runte, whose mother drove him and his siblings across the country from New York State to visit national parks. He says in the video that from the moment he saw Yellowstone and the Grand Teton National Park, he was hooked for live. Next, Burns shows a photo of President Teddy Roosevelt, who in 1903 came to California and asked noted conservationist John Muir (founder of the Sierra Club) to show him around Yosemite. "I do not want anyone with me but you," Roosevelt had written in a letter to Muir. Roosevelt mentioned in his letter that there would be no politics associated with his trip; all he wanted was to be with Muir "out in the open" at Yosemite.
Getting the president of the United States up to Yosemite was a big deal and there was a long caravan of wagons pulled by horses to transport the president and his entourage. Muir found himself sitting in the president's coach, along with the California governor, the secretary of the U.S. Navy and some college presidents. It was Muir's chance to lobby the president to make "all of Yosemite a national park," Burns explained. While the entourage was lodged in a hotel, Roosevelt was alone with Muir, a plan that the president had "hatched" before the trip.
Muir's words from his recollection of this amazing meeting with the president are read by a narrator at this point in the movie. The words dramatically described the campfire around which Muir and the president sat and talked, and the mighty sequoias (redwoods) provided a dramatic setting. The sequoias were "like a cathedral" and the two men slept under the stars, with no tent, just sleeping gear. On their second night out, it snowed in the high country and Roosevelt later said it was "…the grandest day of my life."
Later in the film Burns tells the story of the first automobile to ever arrive at Yosemite. It was a 2-cylinder open air "car" that made a strange "putt-putt" sound; it arrived in June, 1900. The owner of the car and driver was 300-pound Oliver Lippencott, and he was not just exploring Yosemite for the sake of exploring nature, he was on a promotional tour to help the manufacturer of his vehicle. He wondered if modern inventions like the car would rob natural wonders like Yosemite "of its charm." But, he argued in Burns' movie, if a modern invention like the auto can bring citizens closer to their natural world that must be a good thing.
Hawaii National Park
The documentary moves on to a
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